WAG Exhibition Redefines Craft

Iron wheelbarrows as delicate as lace. Silver wire soldered into fragile containers. Precise: Craft Refined, opening at the Winnipeg Art Gallery on September 10, redefines the meaning of “craft.” Five contemporary artists integrate beads, fibres, clay, silver, and industrial metals into stunning works of art. There will be a free public opening at 7pm, Saturday, October 1 as part of Nuit Blanche, an all-night celebration of the arts running from 6pm, Saturday, October 1 to 6am, Sunday, October 2.

Kye-Yeon Son was a 2011 Governor General’s Award winner (Saidye Bronfman Award for Excellence in Fine Craft). Her elegant and restrained compositions in silver consider the natural environment, speaking to its fragility, resilience, and enduring presence in our lives. Jayne Kidd’s exquisite tapestries speak to human interaction with the world in which we exist, our need to understand and control it. Cal Lane transforms industrial metals into delicate, lacy statements that question the ideas of preciousness, femininity/masculinity, artifice, and ornamentation. Teresa Burrows’ incredible bead creations speak to spirituality and to women’s rights and power. Greg Payce’s work considers the relationship between vessel and human, and our interaction with both the physical presence and the void created/filled by objects.

The work in this exhibition is provocative, visually accessible, instinctively engaging, and aesthetically rewarding. It aims to surprise, to awe, and to expand visitors’ interpretation of craft as it is practiced in the 21 century. The exhibition continues until January 15.

Decorative Arts SymposiumSeptember 22-25 • The Canadian Society of decorative Arts 29th annual symposium, Rendezvous on the Red! Keynote address on the architecture of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights from the firms of Antoine Predock, Architect PC and Smith Carter Architecture. Open to the public.

Artist Talk
Thurs, September 29, 7pm • With Greg Payce whose work is represented in the exhibition.

Art for LunchWed, November 2, 12:10pm • Video • Craft in America: Messages • Next episode in the acclaimed PBS series exploring the craft movement in the United States. Wed, November 9, 12:10pm • Tour • With WAG Chief Curator Helen Delacretaz, curator of Precise